The day before we left for vacation, I called in the babysitter and went out for a pedicure. I think it's the third pedicure I've had since my daughter was born two years ago, so it's not like my schedule is crammed with spa treatments.

"You have the day off?" the nail tech asked from behind his mask.

"I have every day off!" I laughed and then awkwardly bit my lip. "I mean, I have a baby … she's with the babysitter…"

I did it again. I made it sound like I don't have a job when I have at least three jobs — mother, house manager, and writer. I have struggled these two years with belittling my own work and feeling the need to justify my career choices.

Since my daughter was born, the question has been posed to me repeatedly, with this peculiar wording: "Do you work?"

My answer is always, "Believe me, I work."

I had my dream job as a university archivist when I got pregnant. My choice to leave my job was self-serving. I had this new person to build from scratch, her life's experiences to curate. I wanted complete control of those tasks. I wanted to be executive manager of Project Kid — print my new business cards.

I think some people in my life were surprised I wanted to stay at home for a few reasons:

Few parents have the option to trade a paying job for staying at home.

I am not happy when I'm not working.

A family's financial choices are too personal and individual for a broad debate on the cost/benefit of a parent staying at home. At-home parents are too often goaded in these debates to demonstrate their value in dollars. Parents who work outside the home are also pushed to defend their choices in terms of the dollars they bring home to the family. I maintain a strict "Your Bills, Your Business" belief about the financial aspect of childcare choices.

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I maintain a strict 'Your Bills, Your Business' belief about the financial aspect of childcare choices.

The plain truth is I don't have to defend my employment status to anyone, and I'm not sure why anyone but my husband should care. My husband does, in fact, care whether I work. He formed an opinion on the subject long before our daughter was in the picture, as he watched my agitation and waning sense of self-worth during a few of my "employment gaps." When I don't have a job to report to, I struggle to define myself.

That's one dirty secret of this stay-at-home mother: I critique myself too harshly to notice much judgment from outsiders. I have to-do lists, schedules, project notebooks, daily productivity quotas — all to prove to myself that I am working.

I have days that can only be summed up as marathon octopus wrestling matches. My kid grows four extra limbs, and I spend eight hours trying to keep them all out of wall sockets and medicine cabinets — while avoiding serious injury to my own face and throat. This is work.

Some days, she is sweet as a peach, and we make art, read, practice climbing, play with friends. This is work.

Some days, she is low-key, content to play with blocks and take a long nap. On those days, I can sit in the next room and write. This is work.

Some days, I do all of the above and coordinate a family's worth of appointments and travel plans and home-maintenance tasks. This exploits my need to control everything, and it is work.

On Saturdays, my husband takes our daughter out for a long run, and I sleep in. This is not work; it's my morning off.

Because I don't go to an office (other than my home office upstairs) or have a boss who sets my schedule (other than the toddler sleeping upstairs), it may be hard for outsiders to fit my work of writing and mothering into a job-shaped box. I know another self-employed mother who gets the same feeling that others don't think she really works.

To the contrary, our work is wherever we are; our jobs are difficult to classify. Speaking from my meager two years' experience in this position, my job is awesome, awful, hard, easy, enlightening, and annoying — just like every other job.